The Solution to Attraction
by EmeliaHarding
Summary: Maura wasn't how we all imagined her in high school, at least, not at first. When a certain Jane Rizzoli, most popular and sought after girl in school, captures Maura's eye; she knows that she'll need to make some drastic changes to get Jane to notice her. All it takes is a well thought out formula. Originally posted to Tumblr - loveatfirstsight-atlastsight
1. The Constraints

Maura Isles lay on her bed, arms crossed and body rigid.

The tears trickled slowly down the side of her porcelain face, finding their way into her ears, and spreading across the side of her cheeks to wet the feminine pink pillow cover beneath her.

It had taken all of her self control to hold the tears inside during the car ride home with her father. She had to force the over-enthused smile to stay in place for the benefit of her mother, who for once was not away on business.

"Have a nice day at school, darling?" her mother had asked.

"Yes." Maura breathed, exhausted, as she fled to the refuge of her bedroom.

This same question had been asked only three times in Maura's life; each sparingly within the last year that she had been attending the Boston public high school. Maura sometimes wondered how her parents would respond if she screamed, "No! I hated every miserable minute of it!"

More tears welled up in her eyes, and she blinked them away to stare at the dark ceiling. It was no use drowning in self-pity. She would never have what she desired, and she had to learn to accept it.

Jane Clementine Rizzoli. It started and ended with her.

Jane had the pick of any boy or girl at their school (and no doubt in any other that she may enter) so why would she look at Maura? If anyone ever so much as suspected the way that Maura felt about her, she would be a disgrace.

She could never confide in her mother. Constance wouldn't understand anything about how she was feeling... It was awful being stuck with, or not so stuck with, parents that were seldom to be seen.

Maura breathed slowly in and out, struggling to decrease the lump in her throat, and control the tremor in her rib cage.

Jane was a friend of Maura's, at least, Maura liked to call her that.

Jane was the prettiest girl in school, with the body of an athlete and the smile of this year's prom queen. She had two rambunctious younger brothers, so there was always plenty of action in their house.

By contrast, Maura lived quietly as an only child to parents who were seldom home. Their house smelt of old books that gathered on antique shelves. The house flowed with rhythms of Chopin and Mozart rather than that of the punk rock her fellow teenager's homes seemed to blast.

It didn't help being a straight A student at her school, despite her parents' pleasure in her reports. She was the class "Borer" (often chimed to sound like her name), and the plainest girl around. She wore glasses and had a plate to straighten her teeth. Not to mention that most of the girls her age wore the most see-through shirts and tiniest miniskirts on the market, a not-so-subtle difference to the constricting and proper clothing Maura always wore.

Her parents didn't understand that she was the object of ridicule, or even worse, she was just ignored. Her parents thought everything was alright, that as long as she kept up her grades she'd have friends and be happy and be just like them.

The only thing that motivated her to put up with the humiliation of school and all its functions was the fact that Jane, however briefly, always attended.

Jane was the only one who didn't ridicule her, always took the time to stop and chat with her. Unfortunately, she always moved on to someone else.

The lump in Maura's throat subsided, and a warm glow replaced the tremor in her ribs as she thought of Jane. Jane excelled in almost anything. She played sport with the boys and still managed to look like a model by the time lunch bell rung out. She was tall and lithe, with a wide grin, and every boy and girl so inclined (including Maura) was madly in love with her.

She was always friendly, probably because Maura helped Jane with her math at the beginning of summer when she's first moved to Boston. She called her 'Maur', and chatted about sport and music with her. Sometimes she complained about the teacher's she didn't like, and once she had fixed Maura's bike tire, but Jane had never asked her out. Maura often wondered if Jane had ever thought of her as more than 'Maura the borer'.

Jane went out with somebody different every week, it didn't seem to matter what gender they were because everybody had fun with Jane. After the weekends, stories regaling wild parties and rooftop kisses would flood the halls in whispers. Most recent was that of the rumours circulating around Casey Jones, a boy that had been on two consecutive dates with Jane; everybody else couldn't help but notice what a cute couple they were.

"She's only taking pity on you." Macey, a girl that Jane had taken to the movies, sneered at Maura in the hall.

The words echoed in her head as she dwelt on the thoughts of Jane. When Jane liked girls, she liked pretty girls like Macey, Alison and Sara. They were the ones she took to late night drive-ins and ice cream dates. What did they all have in common other than being Jane's favourite girls? Macey was stupid but wore the shortest skirts, Alison was sexy and sung in a band with Jane's little brother, and Sara was a cheerleader and gymnast.

They all had completely different personalities, hobbies and likes and dislikes, yet there must be something they all had that Maura did not. None of them were overly bright; Maura knew that she was a lot smarter than them. So why didn't Jane notice her?

In appearance the girls Jane liked were almost interchangeable, despite a few unique characteristics. They were all slim and graceful with flashing smiles and raging confidence.

Maura suddenly smiled in satisfaction. It was the same sort of smile that she used when immersed in a math problem that suddenly made sense. She didn't have what those girls did, and she might be the plainest girl in school, but Maura was smart – she didn't know what defined attraction to Jane but she was sure that it could be gained if she tried hard enough.

Maura turned the light on, staring accusingly at her reflection. Her hazel eyes still swum with glistening tears and her cheeks were still stained red. Her mousy brown hair hung in a wispy plait down her front; something her father had once referred to as 'cute'. The plait would be the first to go, she decided.

Alison was chubbier than she was, and shorter too, but she had a cheeky grin and a witty tongue that Maura had once overheard 'did things that would make a porn star blush'. Sara sometimes dressed sensibly like Maura, but she always walked with a sway in her hips that Maura had never managed to encompass quite as well. Macey sometimes wore glasses without lenses; the boys thought it made her look smart, Jane probably thought that too.

Maura was going to be one of those girls. All it would take is some determination, charisma and intelligence. Two out of three she already had. Previously she had focussed all, or most, of her attention on impressing her parents, but appealing to Jane was growing to be more important.

She yawned, wandering back to her bed and sliding under the plush blanket. From her experience, life was just like math. There were solutions to every problem if you had intelligence and determination to find them.

Tomorrow, she promised herself, was the first day of her new life.


	2. New Context

Maura woke the next morning to sun streaming across the floor. Her clock read 9:03am, Saturday.

It had been raining in the night, its presence apparent in the misted smell that hung in the air, drifting through the crack of her window. Maura breathed deeply, swiping slender fingers across her eyelids to clear them from sleep.

Could she really get Jane's attention, or would she only humiliate herself further by trying to be like Macey, Alison or Sara?

Maura sighed, pulling herself from the comfort of her bed. Her hair was rumpled by sleep, still wavy due to yesterday's plait. She definitely had potential. Maura took her plate out and sat it on the dresser, simultaneously rummaging for the contacts that she seldom wore.

Maura was not a fan of her contacts; they were too fiddly and easily lost, too much trouble than they were worth when she only ever needed her glasses for reading.

With hesitance, she attempted putting her contacts in with the help of her floor length mirror. Everything was going fine until she got to the second one.

"Ow!" She exclaimed, dropping one of her contacts on the floor.

Maura frowned, bending down to pick it up with a frustrated breath. She briefly considered only wearing one.

By half past nine she'd made it to the kitchen, wearing both contacts, moving to pour herself a glass of juice. Upon picking up the empty pitcher however, she noticed a flimsy piece of her mother's business paper beneath it.

_Darling, your father and I have been called away to Denmark._

_We didn't want to wake you._

Her father never wrote the notes and her mother never signed them. Never had there been an 'I love you' or even one of those ridiculous x's or o's that somehow constituted as the written hug and kiss. The endearment of 'darling' was only a casual title to her mother, non exclusive to her adopted daughter.

Maura sighed, crumpling the paper and tossing it into the trash. There was no return date.

After an apple and half glass of juice, she headed back to her bedroom where she selected a modest plaid dress, under which she wore a white shirt.

Observing her figure in the mirror she noticed that all hope could not be lost to her. She had developed a petite frame and gentle waist line that made up for her less than feminine assets higher up. Thankfully, her cheek bones were well defined without making her face overly angular like the girl who sat beside her in Mr. Korsak's mathematics class. She smiled to herself.

With a quick glance over her calendar she was relieved to see that there were no day plans scheduled. Maybe after finishing her report on Geochelone sulcata and their breeding habits at the library, she would be able to browse a few of the main street stores and begin manufacturing her new look.

Most afternoon's and sometimes nights, Maura had taken to tutoring students in their neighbourhood, a service she often enjoyed when it didn't involve the patience-trying Giovanni Gilberti; a boy she chastised herself for tolerating.

She collected her notebook and pen, along with the twenty-page beginning of her report. With one last look over in the mirror she decided to leave her hair out, tamed only by a few light strokes with her brush.

Outside, last night's light rain had put a pleasant glimmer on the world around her; tree's, hedges, roads, paths and all her neighbours cars sparkled under the warm mid-morning sun. The sky was robin's egg blue with a sparse patch of pearly clouds coming from the east that Maura was sure would bring rain later in the day.

So distracted by the encapsulating view on her way to the library, Maura tripped on a rise in the sidewalk. She braced herself for the fall only to feel a strong arm encircling her waist and pulling her back to her feet.

"Easy."

Maura turned to realize the breathy voice in her ear was that of her very own crush, Jane Rizzoli, suddenly, the arm around her waist made her stomach flip.

Jane only smiled, her arm lingering for a few moments before it moved to straighten Maura's shoulder bag.

"Thank you." Maura whispered, embarrassed.

Jane laughed, the mere sound making Maura blush further.

"You were off in your little dream world, Maur; I've been calling out to you for a few minutes." Jane teased.

Maura shifted awkwardly as she watched Jane bend down to retrieve her bike. When she stood again, chipped red metal grasped beneath her palm, she took in Maura's entire frame.

"You're not wearing your glasses." she commented. "And your hair is out."

"Yes." Maura nodded stupidly.

"It's, it's different." Jane shrugged.

They were silent for a few minutes more, each one finding something interesting about the ground at their feet.

"I need to finish my report." Maura blurted suddenly, turning on her heel.

"Wait!" Jane called promptly. "Do you think..."

Maura turned, her eyes wide, was this the moment she'd been waiting for?

Jane shifted on her feet, mouth slightly open as Maura's gaze encouraged her to continue.

"Do you think that maybe, I mean, you can say no." Jane clarified.

"Yes?" Maura breathed nervously.

"Do you think you could help Tommy out with his maths like you helped me when you first came here, you're still tutoring aren't you? Ma says that you go over to the Gilberti's a few nights a week to help Giovanni and well..."

"It's fine, Jane." Maura interjected promptly, her hopes shattered.

"Thanks." Jane grinned, the lilt on one side never failing to capture Maura's heart. "Anyway, I gotta run." She breathed, motioning to a nonexistent location up their street. "Think you could come by tonight, about five thirty?"

"Ah, yes, that should be fine." Maura stuttered.

"Great!" Jane called, already riding her bike down the asphalt road.

She could never say no to Jane.


End file.
